On Feb. 13, Skutt Student Center’s fireplace lounge was packed with Creighton students cheering on their fellow bluejays as they competed in a poetry slam. Pat McEvoy, who has been a part of several Omaha poetry slam teams at the National Poetry Slam, was the host of this event.
Sophomore Allison Dethlefs, Art Coordinator Apprentice for the Skutt Student Center, was right on when she said that Poetry Slams encourage lots of audience participation, making poetry slams far different from and much more lively than a traditional poetry reading.
“I’m Pat McEvoy and you are all attending a poetry slam,” McEvoy said.
The crowd “wooed” with enthusiasm.
McEvoy continued by providing a brief history of poetry slams; Marc Smith, a construction worker in Chicago, started the poetry slam phenomenon, McEvoy said. To this, several audience members countered with the appropriate poetry slam jargon “So what?!”
“I can tell several of you have been to one of these before,” McEvoy remarked before transitioning to the rules of the poetry slam.
The rules of the slam were as follows: each participant was able to read two poems — one during round one, and one during round two — before all but three of the participants were eliminated. Randomly chosen audience members, or “judges,” graded the participants using a 1-10 scale. Once the scores were calculated, the top three contestants then read a third poem. After the third poem was read, a winner was selected. The winner then chose whether or not they wanted to read a fourth poem.
“If the judge gives a person a four, what are you going to do?” McEvoy asked.
The audience responded with a roaring “boo!”
With that, the poetry slam began. Some of the readers’ compilations were humorous, while others tended to be more serious. Freshman Alessandra Panares, a psychology and English double major, explained how she decided what poetry to read.
“I think about what I think people will be in the mood for, and what will be entertaining,” Penares said.
Penares was definitely entertaining. Penares’ first poem was a humorous take on relationships — aligning perfectly with the Valentines season.
“Maybe I should just go with the boy I see in the library every day<” Penares said. “He likes books. I like books. I think together we could be pretty epic. We could have a classic sort of love, and I’m not talking about Romeo and Juliet; that’s just tragic.”
Students walking through Skutt Student Center stopped to listen to the slam participants recite their poems. The participants projected their voices, timed their breaths, and used elements like rhyming and repetition to enhance their poems.
John Byrne, Danielle Turner, and Luke Buffington placed first, second, and third respectively; these top three individuals received prizes for their work.
John Byrne, a freshman English major, noted that the people around him inspire his poetry. Byrne dedicated one of his poems to his older sister.
“I do slam because all of my life I have loved performing,” Byrne said.
Senior Spanish secondary education major Danielle Turner, on the other hand, said that she is mainly inspired by her own personal experiences. The passion in Turner’s voice when she read “Dear Mommy” sent chills up my spine.
“I’m not very good with coming up with flowery words on my own, so I speak about things I know,” Turner said. “Once I write a poem, I feel the need to express it to other people because I think that all art forms are meant to me experienced by others.”
If you are interested in learning more about upcoming Poetry Slams in the Omaha area, visit www.poetrymenu.com